Pandemic Parables: Camaraderie

Pandemic Parables: Camaraderie

There has been an increase in camaraderie in the already friendly, hospital in Frederick, Maryland where I work as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August.

This is no real surprise as the hospital has far fewer people walking its halls. There are virtually no visitors, and staff have been cut back to a minimum. 

Those who can are working from home. Others, such as medical staff who are not needed on the Covid-19 areas, or in their sparsely-patient-filled regular sections, have been furloughed or reassigned. The hospital has created a generous virus-related policy enabling non-essential-at-the-moment employees to select very fair alternative ways to work and be paid. 

This is a hospital that truly values its staff. 

If you see an unfamiliar face hurrying through the halls with a visitor badge and a strained, glazed expression it is someone on their way to seeing a dying patient. Alternatively it might a proud, focused, car-seat carrying new father headed for the birthing center hastening to get his partner and freshly-emerged progeny far away from the hospital and its carefully cloistered Covid patients. 

Because there are so few full time staff members left, strong bonds forged by kindness and understanding are being formed between those that are still here as we face this crisis and share together the tension and stress that permeate the hospital’s atmosphere.  

Sometimes I feel like walking through the hallways quoting the long-ago memorized St. Crispin’s Day speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V: “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...”

As I visit my assigned areas I see signs of this camaraderie and kindness everywhere. I went into the isolation wing on my floor, the third floor, as I do daily to check on the staff. I wanted to see if they were ready for more pumpkin bread. 

They weren’t. 

When I entered their break room I saw why.  There was a huge basket overflowing with fruit, cookies, cakes, chips; an enormous box of donuts; a myriad of other good things. 

This glorious largesse had been put together by the nursing staff of another area of the floor wanting to thank their fellow staff on this isolation wing, and the one on the floor above, for their dedication and bravery in being sequestered with the virus-sick. 

Such generosity and kindness!

As I walked towards a group of nursing staff to see if they would like prayer, I saw a tall man with a Jamaican accent who had just come out from cleaning one of the Corona virus patient’s rooms. 

“How are you?” I said. “Are you doing alright? How are you feeling” 

His eyes crinkled at the corners as though he was smiling widely under his cloth mask. 

“How are you?” He said looking down at me from his great height. His eyes were kind. 

“You get to look out for and pray for everyone else.  So I want to know. How are you?”

Moved by his genuine concern I melted into a puddle all over his recently shined floor. 

The staff on my isolation wing are grateful that there has been a recent decline in the number of patients they are looking after. They see it as a welcome pause before the next wave - a time to catch their breaths. 

“The prayer is working!” Said one. “Amen!” another agreed. 

I told them about St. John the Evangelist church, five minutes from the hospital in the historic part of Frederick, (known as the City of Clustered Spires because of the close proximity of its beautiful old churches.) 

St. John’s has the tallest bell tower, which has just been lovingly restored. It is the one you first see when you drive into town. Every night until the end of the pandemic St. John’s have committed to flooding their tower with blue light to remind everyone who sees it to pray for those who are on the front lines of the Covid-19 war. 

“So you are being prayed for by many people” I said. 

Their smiles of gratitude tinged with relief are engraved on my heart. 

The stress really is palpable in every area of the hospital and felt by everyone, not just those working in the ICUs and isolation wings. 

A security guard told me in passing he had to exercise discipline to take only one blood pressure pill a day. Several who heard him sympathized, nodding knowingly.  

Alongside the stress is a guarded relief that the feared surge has not yet come. As of Thursday night we had twenty four confirmed virus patients, thirteen of whom were in the ICU on ventilators, and three who were sealed off under investigation. 

The hospital has now sourced chemicals enabling them to process virus tests that come both from their drive-by sites and from within their walls. 

That means that instead of waiting for up to ten days to get results from seriously log-jammed outside laboratories the  results can be had within 24 hours - sometimes quicker. This prevents unnecessary use of PPE - and gives the patient and their families great relief. 

There is a new ritual for when a patient is declared Covid-19 free and sprung from the isolation wings. Music is played on the overhead speakers. The opening notes of a lullaby are always heard when a baby is born. Now, in addition, we are getting bursts of the theme tune from “Rocky” or “Here Comes The Sun” and we rejoice that another patient is on the far side of their virus nightmare.

There is one patient, dear to many of our hearts, that we are longing to hear has kicked Coronavirus to the curb. A truly wonderful nurse practitioner in the Hospice program, whom I adore, has tested positive and is recovering at home where she lives alone. This former army nurse is one of the most vibrant, loving genuine people I know. She lives nearby. So of course I dropped off a still warm, prayed-over loaf of pumpkin bread, and hearty chicken soup outside her closed front door.

This Nurse Practitioner wants to heal quickly, and build immunity, so she can return and continue caring for dying Covid-19 patients. 

She and her fellow Hospice nurses are the most incredible human beings. 

They are frightened  - or at least wary - of the virus, but they gown up (grateful that the dwindling supply hasn’t completely petered out) and go and minister love and compassion regardless. 

One of their patients loved Elvis. She wanted to hear his music one last time. So the hospice nurse held her hand and sang his songs as the patient transitioned into death. 

That is love in action!

Needless to say the second loaf of pumpkin bread went to the hospice nurses this week. Such a tiny tribute for a group who give so much. 

There is a Service Excellence Team at the hospital who are doing their best to make all the staff feel valued and loved. We have no physiotherapy patients at the moment so they have emptied out the equipment that is normally in their gym and have turned it into a “Zen Den.” The lights are low, soft relaxing music plays, reclining massage chairs, rocking chairs and foot massagers are all ready to be wiped down with disinfectant before use and enjoyed. They have placed writing and meditation prompts in there as well as refreshments and aromatherapy sprays. It is there for any member of staff who needs a Time Out from anxiety. 

This team have also placed placards by the time clocks. One says: “This Is Where Heroes Clock In” Another - “You Make The World A Better Place”. 

It is all kindness and comradeship in action. 

The other day I had seen two dying patients in a row. They were non-virus patients who were well below their biblical allotted span. They were long, emotional, meaningful visits. One was grieving because it was the first time she had ever been away from her home-schooled children, realizing that her absence would soon be permanent. 

The other was hoping to return home to die. 

He was scheduling his friends to come and see him for short visits so he could say goodbye. He was going to insist that each of them take a book from his carefully collected library of technical literature when they left. 

“Why not?” He said. I won’t be needing them now.”

After those visits I went for a ten minute break in the Zen Den. I was stretched out in a recliner when an interpreter that I didn’t know came in and smiled at me. She picked up an aromatherapy bottle and said “would you like me to spray you with lavender?

I would. 

She did. 

And then she left. 

Again - kindness. 

Lavender reminds me of my maternal grandmother. I felt safe and cocooned in those memories 

So for those few minutes I lay back and let some of the tension from the hospital that seemed to have gone in my bones flow out of me. 

As I did I realized that this virus season is showing people for who they really are deep down. Surface distractions are gone. At times like these you see people’s essence. 

I am spending my days with a dedicated, skillful team of people who care. Really care. We are being bonded together by a common, invisible enemy. 

We are being supported by an army of people who pray, encourage, love. 

And that is good. Very good. 

It makes me rethink my future. What I want. 

What I will no longer tolerate. 

It also makes me think about a bible story that starts in 1 Samuel 22. 

David, the shepherd boy, psalmist, and future king, was fleeing from King Saul and had to pretend to be a madman to get out of the clutches of one of Saul’s allies, Achish who was King of Gath. In despair David holed up in a stronghold called The Cave of Adullam. Four hundred men “who were in distress, or in debt, or discontented” made their way to him. Together they spent time in isolation, in effectual quarantine from an enemy that seemed too big for them.  But when they emerged this misfit rabble had been transformed. They are referred to later as “David’s Mighty Men” and were known for their bravery and exploits. 

So with us. 

I believe that this quarantine time is honing and testing us. It is a necessary boot camp for what lies ahead. Lessons are being taught that we will need - and could learn no other way. We are being transformed. And although it is hard to endure. It is worth the pain and frustration. 

Or will be. 

And I believe that there will be a real camaraderie between all in this generation who have feared, faced off against, and overcome this virus. At some deep level we will be permanently bonded. 

Shakespeare says it best although he was talking about the Battle of Agincourt, and not an unseen enemy. It is the rest of the quote that I found myself muttering in the hospital’s halls. 

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.”

God be with all of you. We shall fight. We shall endure. We shall overcome. And the new reality will be different but real. Worthwhile. 

May it be filled with peace, grace, and fulfilled dreams. 

For all of us. 

Amen!

Pandemic Parables: Moving

Pandemic Parables: Moving

We are indeed on the move at the hospital in Frederick, Maryland where I’m working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August. In the middle of a pandemic a large building project is taking place in the area where the chaplains' offices are situated. 

Were situated. 

With only hours of notice our office had to be vacated. We needed to move into a temporary space, effectively a corridor surrounded by tall - but not nearly ceiling high - office dividers. 

There were ever-changing messages about this transition; what would come with us; what would be put in storage; where was our final destination; and when that would be. Many things are still uncertain. At least they are to me and my fellow chaplains. 

This past week has felt as though we are in a carnival sideshow precariously shuffling across a series of interlocking circles that are constantly shifting. All the while we are holding high trays piled with serious chaplaincy and visitation duties, like stoic religious waiters. 

Needless to say we have been doing a lot of extra praying for peace, grace, and the ability to hold it all together with equanimity. 

The other day, needing to shed stress, I couldn’t wait for my lunchtime walk around the beautiful, eerily empty grounds of Hood College, which is right behind the hospital. It was seventy five degrees, one of our first warm days. There was a tornado advisory - but that wasn’t due to start for over an hour. 

I headed out the door. 

The sky began to darken. I walked faster. The clouds became ominous. I increased my pace and my prayers. Fifteen minutes into a thirty minute walk the heavens opened and let loose a deluge that was biblical in intensity. I arrived back at the hospital front entrance dripping like a just bathed labradoodle, much to the hilarity of the security officers. 

I squished through the hallways towards our new office space to get my car keys, leaving a slug-like shiny wet trail behind me, all the while apologizing profusely to every cleaner I passed. 

I live close to the hospital. Every article I wore was soaked. There was no alternative but to change. As I drove home the skies cleared. The sun came out. Had there really been been a tremendous downpour minutes before?

There was a parcel outside my door. I buy many of my clothes second hand on eBay. A new to me maxi skirt had arrived that matched the jewelry I was already wearing. Here was my sartorial solution!  Within minutes I was dressed in fresh clothes from the skin up, had dried my hair, and was on my way back to work, hardly over my allotted lunch time. The sun was still shining and did so for the rest of the day. 

And I got several compliments on my new skirt. 

The whole incident had me thinking ahead to when the intensity of the pandemic has passed. Even beyond then, when this unsettling season has slipped into distant memory. 

Will it seem like a dream? 

As though it never really happened? 

But like me, glancing down at my new skirt and being reminded of the downpour, we will have changed. 

No one will come through this mass trauma the same. 

But I am believing that, like the parcel waiting for me outside the door containing exactly what I needed, that the Almighty will continue to provide and protect.

And because of that, although the future will look different, it will be good. 

Pandemic Parables: Gifts

Pandemic Parables: Gifts

This has been a week of gifts small and large in the Frederick, Maryland hospital where I am a Resident Chaplain until the end of August. One of those gifts is that the number of virus patients in the hospital has risen gently, not in a tidal wave.
Yet.  

Based on national models, the hospital CEO is projecting that the surge will peak at the end of May. It is a wonderful hospital and the leadership has made a myriad changes to the overall running of the place so that they are as prepared as they can be when the flow of virus patients increases. Sections of the hospital, including what was the business center across the street, and a large prefab building given by the State and quickly erected in the parking lot, await a flood of patients that we continue to pray never arrive. 

So far, by Thursday evening, seven Covid-19 patients had died at the hospital since the pandemic began, (and we grieve every one of them). There were eighteen confirmed cases and twenty in isolation awaiting results. But - wonderful news - twenty three patients have recovered- mainly due to the tireless dedication of the nurses who look after them with such love, skill, and grace. 

Another gift is the changing of the visitation policy. It used to be that a virus patient could have no visitors. Now if a  patient is actively dying two visitors over the age of eighteen are allowed to be with them. They are given gowns, gloves, masks - the same protective equipment as the nurses. It must be the same two visitors and they have to agree to isolate themselves for fourteen days after leaving the hospital following the death. 

This is a wonderful relief for many relatives, and for the nurses who truly care for their patients. However not everyone can take advantage of the new visitation opportunity. One family had just had a baby and didn’t want to risk coming in to the hospital, another patient’s husband was too frail, another already had a compromised immune system. All good reasons to stay away. 

There is a small dedicated team of Hospice nurses who work solely with the dying and their families. These women have become my friends. They are among the loveliest, most compassionate people I have ever met, with the most vibrant senses of humor. 

It hurts these hospice nurses’ hearts to see a patient die alone. So they are organizing for a dedicated iPad, for their use only so it will always be available, to connect the patient with their family via technology through their last hours of life. 

Although I am not allowed to go into virus patient’s rooms I consider it a gift that I am now able to enter the isolation wing on the third floor, one of my assigned areas. Before I had to hand the prayed-over pumpkin bread, that I am making weekly for staff that I could no longer see, to the unit secretary. She would emerge from the inner sanctum looking tense and strained. “It’s hard to be in there some days.” She’d say. “It is difficult to be cut off from everyone. And there is always a fear that you might carry something back home with you. Some of the younger nurses feel it particularly. They have small children.”

So I was really pleased that this week I could carry the pumpkin bread in myself. 

There have been several deaths on this wing, far more than they usually have. The Nurse Manager, who has goodness, grace, and compassion coming from her pores, was concerned about the effect that multiple deaths were having on her staff, already tense from working in a virus hot spot. So finally I was allowed in. 

The Nurse Manager led me through the door with its “Do not Enter! Isolation!” sign, to a second barrier. Stretched across the hallway floor to ceiling was a thick transparent sheet that was embedded with two long zips. Opening one,she let me through and quickly fastened it behind us. 

Beyond that plastic wall is a different world. The strain and tension in the air was palpable. I could see  it in the faces and the body language of the staff. Almost before I’d managed to hand over that much appreciated sweet treat the most incredible thing happened. Nurses, and assistants, got up from their stations, formed an oddly shaped circle saying to their co-workers “The chaplain’s here. We are going to pray. Do you want to join us?”

And we did! That prayer was one of the most heartfelt I have ever uttered. And I believe the Almighty will indeed pour His love, grace, and strength into and through these incredible carers, and protect them and those they love. 

The next day when I returned to the unit I discovered what the second zip in the plastic barrier was for. It created a larger portal. Another patient had died not long before and I entered at the same time as a porter pushing a gurney covered by a sheet - transportation for the morgue. 

“The nurses aren’t used to so many deaths on the unit.” Said the secretary, reiterating the Nurse Manager’s concerns. “None of us are. They are all doing so well at the moment. They are holding their emotions inside them and doing their jobs beautifully. But the strain will come out afterwards. That’s when they’ll need help. When we’ll all need help.” I nodded in agreement. And then we gathered, a smaller group this time, and once again, we prayed. 

There have been other gifts. One of the hospice nurses, whom I adore, gave me a colorful hair band with two large, bright buttons sewn on each side so that face masks could attach and save your ears from strain. She had an abundant handful she’d commissioned a friend to make so that she could gift them to her fellow workers. My ears and my heart are grateful. 

One gift was unexpected and touched me deeply. A cleaner on the non-isolation part of my floor, a kind and caring woman, has an angel ministry. She prays and asks the Lord which patients would be blessed by a small angel statue. 

I went into one patient’s room, before this pandemic. He was overjoyed, his face beaming. “I’d been praying and asking for the Lord to show me that he loved me” he said. “I wanted a touch from an angel. And then a cleaner I’d never seen before came into the room and gave me this.“ 

With tears in his eyes he pointed to a small plastic angel. “Now I know God truly loves me!”  

I moved aside all my preexisting theology about angels and knew with certainty that the Almighty was walking these corridors and using an abundance of ways and willing hearts to touch His people. 

The other day I was a recipient of this Angel ministry. “Here” said the cleaner. “This is for you.”  And she handed me a small white porcelain angel holding a full-flowering rose. 

I was deeply moved. 

Years ago, with the help of many volunteers,  I launched a theatre in the church in England where I worked. It was called “The Rose” - short for Rose of Sharon - one of the names of Jesus. 

Later, in America, I had  a ministry also called “The Rose,” which nurtured and grew prophetic creativity. Creativity that speaks to the heart. 

If I could have hugged that wonderful cleaner I would have - tightly. It was only social distancing that kept me apart. 

That angel is now on my desk. Every time I see it I feel the Lord saying” Hopes and dreams I’ve given you will be fulfilled. In my way. In my time. Hang on in there darling!”

There were a couple of other unexpected gifts this week. The first was a silent belly laugh. 

As part of my Chaplain Residency program I meet for two hours a week Tuesday through Thursday with my supervisor and five fellow male chaplains. For the last few weeks it has been via the internet. 

Last week I realized, yet again, that despite having worked in the hospital since last May this Storyteller is still incredibly unmedical. My supervisor was talking about a heroine. For the longest time I thought she was referring to Rapunzel when in reality she was talking about the drug... 

I guffawed internally long and loud at my idiocy all the while keeping a straight face for the camera. 

The levity was needed. It was a deep serious session. One chaplain’s home town is Albany, Georgia. At the beginning of Covid-19, on the cusp of social distancing, when understanding was scant, two churches got together for a funeral for a beloved elder. They deliberately hugged and embraced to show that they were not afraid of the virus. 

Albany, Georgia is now a main center of the pandemic in the South. 

My fellow chaplain told me that every day he hears of friends and family dying. 

In addition another chaplain in our group had recently lost his mother. 

In the ten minute break in the middle of the web session I badly needed to stretch my legs. I walked down the long corridors passed the gift shop, closed for the duration, with its forlorn stuffed bunnies drooping under the sorrow of not being adopted. I continued on to the main hospital foyer grateful for the exercise. 

I heard music. 

It was coming from the almost always silent grand piano that graces that main entrance. There was a man in sweats and a golf shirt playing beautifully and with enthusiasm. It was one of the doctors freshly changed from his scrubs tinkling those ivories with abandon, playing for sheer joy as well as for the handful of people who were listening with surprise and gratitude. 

I sat down eight feet from him and, through my mask, cheered him on. He played Elton John’s “Your Song” with its opening line “It's a little bit funny this feeling inside...” He ad libbed as he went along with the words  “I’d build a big house where Covid could not live”. And ended with a flourish on “How  Wonderful Life is When You’re In the World” before wiping down the keys, giving us all an air hug, and leaving. 

I raced back to my web meeting thinking about all the people who work in this hospital and how, for this season, this Storyteller unlikely or not - is so grateful to be in their dedicated midst. 

I also thought that in this time of darkness the glimmers of goodness, the unexpected kindnesses, the bubbling laughter are indeed a great divine gift. They show that He who has His eye upon the sparrow cares deeply and is watching over us all with great love and compassion. 

I am writing this post on Easter Saturday. That divine pause between Good Friday’s sorrow, and Easter Sunday’s joy. Like us with the fear and uncertainty of the Coronavirus, on that long ago Saturday the apostles were hiding away in terror of the Roman wrath that lurked outside their door. 

And then the Resurrection happened and everything changed. 

In this season of miracles may Resurrection light and life flood all of our lives bringing deep inner peace and the certain knowledge that we are loved. Deeply loved. Loved beyond our understanding or comprehension. 

And may we also know with unwavering conviction that somehow, some way, in God’s perfect time, everything is going to be all right. 

Amen.

Pandemic Parables: Changes

Pandemic Parables: Changes

The changes happening at the hospital over the last few days have been constant and confusing as the senior leadership battle to keep ahead of the overwhelming surge we all fear is coming. 

The very visible change is that from now on all staff all have to wear cloth face masks from the time we leave our cars until we return. “I feel like a bandit” said one male nursing assistant. I nodded in agreement. And it is surprisingly odd not to be able to see if people are smiling. I suspect we will all end up with very expressive eyes. 

 

There are so many other changes happening in what feels like quick fire succession. Including an increase of Coronavirus patients and an expansion of areas in which to care for them. 

As of Friday we had 41 Covid-19 patients in the hospital, nine confirmed to have the virus. The others have the symptoms, are awaiting tests, and of course have to be isolated and treated as though

they are positive. 

The ICU unit now has only Covid-19 patients. I walked through there on Friday. (The area’s regularly assigned chaplain was away.) Faces were tense, conversations terse, and a large sign said “Are you wearing enough PPE?” (Personal protective equipment.) 

Later I met a high level nurse assigned to the ICU from a different specialized area. It was at the end of twelve hour shift. This strong, intelligent woman was close to tears from exhaustion and suppressed fear. It was an honor to pray for her as she stood in line to get coffee. How I wish I could have hugged her - an impossibility from six feet apart. 

Other sections of the hospital have been turned into overflow ICU units. On Wednesday one of those units was in my part of the hospital. (I am assigned to the Emergency Department, Same Day Surgery, and the Third Floor.) The PAC-U  is the recovery area for same day surgery. It has been eerily quiet since elective surgeries were put on hold. On Friday, to my surprise, it was suddenly filled  with non virus patients who normally would have been upstairs in the ICU.  These were seriously ill people. The space was tight and divided by curtains as patients are usually transient. I anointed one patient with oil and prayed for him and his already grieving spouse, knowing he had little time to live. At the same time someone was sweeping the floor feet from his bed. That would not usually ever happen. But then this area is not usually an ICU and everyone is learning to adjust. 

To staff this new ICU area, nurses had been brought from other places in the hospital and quickly retrained, but the systems were different from what they were used to. Great difficultly and stress ensued. Recognizing the problem, Management stepped in and changed gears rapidly. (They have been admirable in their handling  of this unprecedented crisis.) The next day the whole overflow area had been moved to the second floor of the hospital closer to the original ICU. 

I only discovered this the day after praying for the dying patient when I walked through the once again deserted space. It was as though the whole unit had been vaporized. The beds, the curtains, the patients were gone. Remaining were just a few stunned looking nurses who told me what had happened. “It feels like a morgue in here” I said before stopping myself in horror. Then we all burst out laughing to break the tension. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that” said one of the nurses as we looked at each other knowingly, trying to suppress images of the overflowing body count in New York.

I saw one truly marvelous nurse, a good friend, that I hadn’t seen for several days. That’s because instead of being in colorful clothes she was in scrubs wearing a surgical mask. She is a hospice nurse who has been commandeered for the ICU. She doesn’t mind. “I am a nurse” she said. “I am trained to go where I’m needed, to the hurting, the dying. All of my team is like that. We are called. We go.”

Where my friend is most needed at the moment with the Covid-19 patients. This woman has the most enormous heart. She, and her fellow nurses and medical staff, care enormously. She had recently been at the bedside of a dying Virus patient holding their hand through her surgical glove to ensure the patient didn’t die alone. If I, or my fellow chaplains had been allowed into the room we would have done the same. But the declining supplies of  PPE have to be kept for the medical staff.  So in some areas the nurses are doing the work of the chaplains. And the chaplains job, now more than ever, is to care for the nurses and the rest of the staff. 

I was told of a chaplain intern who walked into the Emergency Department (when we were still allowed to go in freely) and was moved to see a nurse holding the hand of a patient and praying with them. I went to the bedside of a non-virus patient a couple of days ago. The patient’s daughter had promised him he wouldn’t die alone and had set up vigil by his bedside. I came in to pray, comfort, and, at the daughter’s request, to anoint her father with oil. Afterwards the daughter told me, with tears in her eyes, that a nurse had come in at the end of her overnight shift and offered to pray before she drove home. An offer that was gratefully accepted.

All this to say that we have the most incredibly loving, caring staff. The chaplains fervently pray that Covid-19 patients, who are forbidden visitors, are surrounded by divine love, compassion, and heaven-sent angels - both spiritual and human. And we trust and believe that those prayers are being answered. 

Of course the hospital has patients that are not virus patients, although at less than half the capacity of before. Some areas are very quiet and their regular nursing staff have been reassigned to other sections of the hospital where there is a greater need. The nurses are willing, but still it is discombobulating for them to have so many changes. 

I walked through one of my areas on Friday, which was April 3rd. It was even quieter than it has been recently. “Where are the patients?” I asked one nurse. “We had ten patients leave yesterday” she said. “They were here drying out. It is the beginning of the month. I suspect the Coronavirus tension was too much for them and they’ve gone to the liquor store.”

We are all learning to cope with the stress of the ever-present virus in different ways. 

Tension is indeed everywhere. It is there in abundance in the hospital, in the grocery stores, in the streets. I crawled home on Friday night, exhausted and feeling like a wound up spring. That tension turned me into a klutz. On Saturday morning I was making breakfast. My arm swept across the counter causing a carton containing six eggs to hurtle skywards and land smashed and seeping across the floor. I could have wept at the waste. My store is usually out of eggs these days so I couldn’t just put on hazmat gear, pop down there and restock.  

But when I stared again at the mess I realized that two of the eggs were only cracked. I put them on to fry while cleaning up the sticky debris. 

They were delicious. 

In a way I think those eggs are a picture of what is happening in our lives. Everything we hold precious is up in the air. Some of it will never be restored back to the way it was. Even what is left might seem a loss at first. A heartbreak. But somehow, with God’s great grace, when we get through this season. And we shall get through it. That which is left behind will sustain us.
More than that, it will be good.

Pandemic Parables: And So It Starts

Pandemic Parables:  And So It Starts

And so it starts...  Last week we had no Covid-19 patients in the hospital where I work as a Resident Chaplain. Yesterday we had 22 with many more isolated awaiting test results. Today the number has increased, we are expecting many more, and we have had our first virus deaths. 

The hospital is electric with tension. Every space that can be used to house patients has been converted. I’m the Resident Chaplain for the Emergency Room, Same Day Surgery and the Third floor (one wing which is now a sealed off isolation area.) There are no elective same day surgeries until the virus has run its course. Walking through that area yesterday was ominous. There were no patients in a space that is normally bustling. And yet lined up outside the cubicles and along the corridors were fully made-up beds, awaiting a deluge of occupants. A myriad of beds. 

I rounded a corner and found a group of nurses quietly sitting and talking about the virus wave that was about to break on them. “I’m scared” said one. Others nodded. “Please tell people to stay home” said another. “For our sakes. Because, if I could, I would swap with them any day.”

They wanted me to pray and I was delighted to do so. And then my pen stuck to the front of my jacket at breast height and wobbled there. And we all giggled like teenagers - grateful that something inane had broken the tension. 

All over the building the medical personnel are on edge. A wonderful nurse practitioner, who has become a good friend, normally wears her beautiful, thick, dark hair flowing or in a loose chignon.  Now it is up in a tight bun. “I’m ex-military,” she said. “I’m wearing it army style because it comforts me and makes me feel secure As though once again I’m being protected by the structure of the military. 

This nurse practitioner and her team work in an area of the hospital where they are free to wear their own stylish clothes. They always looked colorful, elegant, and professional. Now they are in scrubs. “It’s in case I pick up anything” said my friend. I don’t want to take it home on my clothes.”

My friend told me she expects to get the virus at some point and live through it. “How could I not?” She said. “With such close contact that I have with patients.“ 

She told me that an alarm tone had rung loudly on everyone’s personal phones and she jumped startled, staring. Then she realized with a deep relieved sigh that the alert was State-wise and not within the hospital. 

Medical staff are coiled, tense ready to spring into action in this last slow-paced lull before the inevitable storm. 

Nurses must now wear short sleeves and the Nurse Practitioners and managers can no longer wear their white coats. That is so that nothing blocks hands being washed frequently, right up to the elbow. 

It is funny to see these senior nurse that I respect so much without those coats. They look more vulnerable, like wise turtles who have shed their shells. It brought home to me in a new way that these incredible women (and a few men) who deeply care for their staff, and have such big caring, wise hearts, have their own cares and concerns. Sick husbands, children missing graduations, elderly parents living with them. And yet they are called, and are dedicated, and so they adapt. And give. And adapt. And then adapt some more. 

Many other changes were put in place today. New protocols for chaplains visiting the Emergency Department in response to Codes. Basically we can’t until it is established that the patient and anyone with them doesn’t have the virus. 

Then, it seemed within minutes, tall plexiglass shields were erected in the main lobby protecting security officers, and registration personnel. 

One change I found sad and odd. Taking advantage of so many people working from home, major building work is going on near the Chaplains’ office. I went into the tiny chapel today where I love to spend time, and it was stripped bare. All the pews and trappings had been shifted to other areas. The only thing that remained was the beautiful wall wood carving of one elderly hand being compassionately held by another. 

But maybe that is the lesson for the moment. When everything in our lives has been stripped down to its essentials, God will still be there to comfort, nurture and sustain us. As with Elijah hiding in the cave after fleeing Jezebel in terror of retribution, so with us. With me. 

Elijah didn’t hear the voice of God in the earthquake, wind or fire. No no. Elijah heard God in the still small voice. 

 

Now that much of the noise in the world has been turned down, I’m eagerly listening. 

Answers are everywhere. Yesterday I was walking along a deserted corridor near my office. I passed a small round piece of dirt, I looked at it and walked on by. On my return it was still there. So I thought, come on Geraldine, you know what to do! So I bent down and picked it up to throw it away. To my surprise it was an extremely dirty cent coin - a penny. I grinned widely because I have a thing about finding cents on the ground. They often magically appear when I’m needing comfort, encouragement, or answers. When I discover one and read its inscription: “In God We Trust” I feel as though it is a message from the Almighty saying “Don’t worry kid, I’ve got your back.”

I took it to the Chaplain’s Office office and started to scrub it with an antiseptic wipe. It began to shine. It was as though the Lord was using it to say, although everything seems dark and hopeless trust that underneath I am still the same. I will never leave you or forsake you. 

Later, buoyed and comforted by that message, I went for a walk on the nature trail behind my house. I needed to shake the hospital from me with all its tenseness, expectation and fear. I heard the birds, saw the blossoms, and I knew  once again that God is in charge This storm will run its course. And at the end of the movie that we are living in, everything will work out exactly as it should.